Friday, September 09, 2016

The newest product to hit the hobby shelves is Topps 2016 Bowman Chrome Baseball card set. As always, it tends to focus on many of the prospects we have been reading about. Go here for a complete checklist.

This years set includes the very first Bowman base cards for Oneal Cruz and Yadir Drake. Hilariously, Yadir Drake is no longer with the Dodgers. As an 26-year old Cuban signee Drake had to outperform at the lower levels in the minor right away in order to have a real shot at any Major League dreams. Unfortunately, that did not happen. Yadir slashed .109/.155/.127/.282 while with the Tulsa Drillers earlier this season, and was subsequently released by the team on May 27th. Why Topps decided to give him a card?... I dunno.

Oneal Cruz, on the other hand, was sixteen years old when he signed with the Dodgers last year, and performed quite well during his first year of professional play in the Dominican Summer League. He slashed .294/.367/.444/.811 as a seventeen year old. BTW, this isn't exactly Oneal's first pro card. He actually has another Bowman card found in the 2016 Bowman set, but it's an "International Signings" insert card (see that here).

It is now officially Kershaw Day. He'll be stepping back on the mound for the first time since going down on the DL over two months ago. I'd like to think Clayton would return just as good as when he left, but let's get real. We should not expect him to be a Cy Young pitcher right out of the gate. Per Ken Gurnick at MLB.com:

"To be off two months and not be in a competitive situation,
everybody has to be conscious that he's not in midseason form," said
Honeycutt. "He wouldn't be going out there unless he felt well enough to
do it. At the same time, he still has not been in a competitive
situation at the big league level, using all of his pitches. At that
time in '14, it was the curveball that was not as good as it can be.
That's not only a control pitch, it's a feel pitch and a release point."

For purposes of managing expectations, recall that Kershaw threw
seven scoreless innings in his first start off the disabled list in
2014, but he then lost three of his next four starts -- including a
seven-run, 1 2/3-inning disaster in Arizona -- before rewriting the
record books.

This Day in Dodger History: In 1948 Brooklyn Dodgers starting pitcher Rex Barney throws a no-hitter against the Gaints at the Polo Grounds, 2-0. In 1965 Sandy Koufax threw his perfect game at Dodger Stadium against the Cubs, 1-0. You can listen to Vin Scully's call of the ninth inning here.

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“There’s nothing like wearing a Dodger jersey. There’s nothing like it in sports. I don’t care that I’ve never been anywhere else. I don’t care. There’s nothing like wearing a Dodger jersey.” -- A.J. Ellis